Snake Tales
by Joyfulbells
Summary: After discovering a possible completed version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the team is plunged into an adventure, following the route of the beloved Epic.
1. The Book

Hopefully this version works a little better.

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Sophie and Lok were in the library studying. In other words, Sophie was studying. Lok and Cherit were playing catch – with the book Lok was supposed to be reading.

Distracted by the noise, Sophie looked up and snapped, "Lok! What are you _doing_?" Startled, Lok missed the book, and it landed, open, on his head. He grinned sheepishly, as Cherit flew down to hide behind Lok. "And you!" Sophie rounded on Cherit, "how can you _condone_ let alone _participate_ in such behavior!?"

"Hey Sophie," Lok interrupted before Cherit could respond. "What's this?" He was frowning at a page in the book that had just fallen on his head. Sophie leaned over to look at it, and Cherit flew around to land on the table for a better view. It was a picture of a broken clay tablet with wedge-shaped markings on it. It had no caption.

"Is there anything about it on the page before or after?" Sophie asked, reaching to take the book from Lok.

"Hey! I can't answer your question if you grab the book away before I get a chance to look!"

"Who said I was asking you?" Sophie stared at the picture for a second, and then flipped through the book. "That's strange," she murmured. "It appears to be cuneiform, but this book isn't about Sumer, it's about healing spells. There must be a connection somewhere." She began frantically searching for other books. She paused for second, looked at Lok, and said, "Well? Don't just stand there! Look "

"What's so important about it, Sophie?" Lok asked as he retrieved the book, and returned to the table. "It's just a picture in a book. It doesn't even look like it was originally in the book to begin with."

"What?" Sophie stopped searching, and looked up a Lok, startled.

"You didn't notice? It was pasted in -- a long time ago, by the look of the glue."

Sure enough, there tiny beads of yellow peeping out from the edge of the page. "I wonder what the picture is covering." She stared at the glue pensively. "There must be a spell to remove it."

"SEPARATE!" The power-laced word caused the glue to disappear and the picture to fall away from the page it had been attached to, revealing the words beneath. "Like that?" A smug voice asked.

"Zahlia!" The three occupants of the room cried out all at the same time, with varying degrees of pleasure (or lack thereof) in their tones.

"When did you get back?" Lok asked, surprised but delighted.

"A few minutes ago," Zahlia drawled in her usual "casual" voice. "Is Dante around?"

"Dante's out on an errand," Cherit squeaked from his position on Lok's shoulder.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to wait for him then. What have you got there?" Zahlia directed the question at Sophie, who had been glaring at her ever since she had upstaged Sophie with her timely spell.

"I don't know yet," Sophie snapped. The four of them all leaned in to look at the book. "It's about the Epic of Gilgamesh. The author claims that it actually happened. Or at least a similar event, altered in legend."

"Hey! We had to read that in school didn't we? That was the one with the scorpion-people, and the giant bull. I think. Does he really say the whole thing actually happened? I can't read it from here." Lok frowned at the book.

"The author is talking about Gilgamesh's quest for immortality, the rest of the story is apparently all coded directions. He _claims_ he read the entire story, even the lines that are missing from the standard version. The author must have made it up. The Epic was pieced together from fragments of tablets. There's no way he could actually know what the missing parts said."

"He could have, possibly." Cherit had flown down to the table top to get a better look at the book they were poring over. "One complete set was found, but those were broken right after they were unearthed."

"Maybe someone copied down what they said before they were broken!" Lok looked excited. "Maybe this part of the epic is actually a description of how to find some kind of powerful healing spell or something!"

"Do you know how slim the likely-hood of that happening is, Lok? The idea that a person managed to copy an unknown language accurately in such a short amount of time is ludicrous! The story is divided into eleven tablets!"

"But what if…" Sophie and Lok were so caught up in their argument that they didn't notice a troubled-looking Zahlia sneak out of the room. Cherit looked from Zahlia's retreating back, to Lok and Sophie – who were still arguing— then followed Zahlia out of the room.


	2. The Phone

I know there are discrepancies between this chapter and the last one. I am going to fix the first chapter next. I apologise for the extreme shortness.

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Quiet reigned in the library, though it wasn't a peaceful quiet. No, this quiet was the kind that occurs when two people have given up arguing, but neither will concede to the other. This quiet was tense, the sort of quiet that felt as if you could cut it with a knife – like cream cheese. Even the sunlight from the large windows, which should have made the room feel light and airy, had trouble breaking through the intense silence.

There was barely any motion – only the occasional turn of a page and the darting movement of Lok's eyes as he glanced in Sophie's direction every few seconds. Sophie was curled up around her book in her chair: her position exuded defensive indignation, but every few seconds she would glance at Lok – who was slumped in his chair in defensive casualness, reading a book (wonder of wonders). As was inevitable, after a minute or two of glance-dodging, their eyes met. Startled, they stared at each other for a split second – then blurted out in unison, "I'm sorry!" Lok and Sophie both blushed and quickly looked down at their books.

Lok broke the new silence first. "You were right, Sophie. I just jumped to a conclusion without really thinking it through."

"Actually, I've been going over the pages Zahlia uncovered and I think YOU were right, Lok. I should know by now that your instincts are usually dead on."

Lok grinned "Thanks, Sophie. What did you discover in the book?"

"Well, the author claims that the flower referred to in the Epic is actually an object imbued with a very powerful spell, like Nefertiti's scepter. He says that this version of the Epic is a coded description of the route to the 'snake' that swallowed it, which is probably a river. The picture that was glued over these pages is a photocopy of a rubbing from the first tablet."

"So if we translate it, and solve the riddle, we'll have the start of a map… but we need the rest of the tablets too. What's the use of a partial map?" Lok frowned, "so much for finding the Flower."

"But we can find the rest. There are clues hidden in the text. Look – certain symbols on the rubbing have been darkened. I bet they form a message once they've been translated."

"Wow Sophie, you're getting really good at solving puzzles."

"I just told myself: think like Lok." She smiled. "It wasn't very hard."

"Tha… Heeey! Did you just… that wasn't very nice."

"I know – I just couldn't resist." Sophie laughed. "Anyway, I don't have the resources to translate this here. Let's go to the public library, they might have what we need."

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Sparkling gently in the sunlight, the water in the canal flowed slowly along. Zahlia stood and watched, balanced precariously on the edge. She was holding the mangled remains of a cell phone.

"Are you okay?" A high-pitched, raspy voice said out of nowhere.

Zahlia jumped and nearly fell into the canal, but Cherit grabbed the back of her shirt and – flapping wildly – pulled her to safety. "Sorry." Cherit squeaked.

"It's okay; I should have been more alert." Zahlia stepped back to the nearest building, and leaned against it, once gain preoccupied by the smashed phone.

"What do you have there?" Cherit flew over to Zahlia, and stared at the phone. "Oh. Did you accidently step on it?"

"No. I…" Zahlia looked uncertain. "This is the phone Klaus used to use to contact me. I smashed it this morning."

"This morning? Why now? Why not weeks ago when he died?"

"I thought he was dead. When he flinched away from King Basilisk and fell off the roof, I thought he had died, and that was the end of it. But… he called me this morning. He's after something, and he wants me to help him. I won't!" Zahlia threw the phone into the canal. "Well. That's that. When Dante gets back…" Sounds of a serious fight broke the relative silence of the peaceful afternoon. There was a particularly loud explosion, then a frightened yell.

"That was Lok!" Cherit exclaimed. Zahlia took off running towards the noise, and Cherit followed.


	3. The First Fight

"I found it!" Sophie happily declared, pulling a dusty green book off the shelf. Faded gold lettering, forming the words: "Sumerian Cuneiform" could be seen on the spine. She turned to Lok. "Now let's check it out and…" CRASH! Lok pushed Sophie behind the bookshelf, as several windows shattered.

Several Suits flew through the broken windows. Screams echoed through the library as innocent bystanders cowered beneath tables and behind bookshelves or tried to flee from the building. "Suits! How? What? The Professor's gone, the Organization should have disappeared!" Lok whispered to Sophie in supreme confusion.

Sophie frowned, considering the puzzle for a second, before she pushed it out of her mind to deal with more immediate, practical problems. "We need to lead them out of the library." Sophie ran out from their hiding place, shouting "Hey, over here!" The small army of goons looked up from what was obviously a search as Lok followed Sophie out reluctantly.

"Look," one of them said, "It's them!" The entire group moved towards Sophie and Lok, who turned and ran. Behind them, they could hear the thugs shouting out attack spells.

Sophie turned, and called out "Honor Guard!" catching the blasts at the last second. "Keep going!" She said to Lok, who had turned as if to fight back. "We can fight them when we get outside, away from other people."

They were nearly at the closest door, when one of the Suits cried "Hyper stride!" and landed in front of them, in the stance for Touch Ram. As she was about to say the spell, Lok dove forward, knocking her off her feet and out of the way. Sophie threw the door open, and the two Seekers ran out into the alley outside.

"Now we can fight," Sophie exclaimed, holding up an amulet. "Icarus! Come out!"

"Freelancer!" Lok shouted. The two titans leapt forward to confront the approaching group of suits. The suits quickly sent out their own titans, a mixture of Red Caps and Mind Drones. Icarus and Freelancer managed to take out two each before they were over whelmed.

The suits were moving closer, fanning out in a semi-circle around Lok and Sophie, who had their backs to the building next to the library, while Sophie held the suits off with a shield spell. "Lindorm!" Lok reached for his strongest Titan in a last-ditch attempt to blow back some of the enemy Titans and suits, and create an escape route.

Sophie saw what he was doing, and let go of her spell with one hand to reach for her strongest, "Sab…" Her fingers hit air where the amulet should have been. She was only thrown off balance for split second, but that second was just long enough for one of the suits to break through her weakened spell and hit her with a particularly nasty Ray Pulse. Sophie was immediately blown back into the wall.

Lok let out a terrified yell as she slid to the ground and lay still. He spun to face the six remaining suits. He sent a Bolt Flare at the suit who had hit Sophie, taking him by surprise. The Red Caps and Mind Drones had been taken out by Lindorm, but the sheer number of minor Titans had led to a mutual canceling out. For the next minute or so, Lok did his best to fight off the last five suits while protecting Sophie, but five against one are not good odds (even for the main character of a cartoon). He was soon overpowered and knocked out.

"Does he have the book?" A female Suit with short auburn hair asked the large, black-haired, male Suit who had just swung Lok over his shoulder.

"It's probably in his backpack," the Suit grunted. "Let's go." The other four healthy Suits woke up their fallen comrades with various minor healing spells, and the group left, leaving Sophie lying motionless in the alley.


End file.
